Precision measurement of quenching factors for low-energy nuclear recoils at TUNL

With detector technologies becoming increasingly sensitive to exotic events, a thorough understanding of signal yield as a function of deposited energy is required for appropriate interpretation of results from cutting edge detector systems. Elastic neutron scattering is a probe which has been used to mimic the nuclear recoils which may be produced in detection media by light-WIMP interactions or coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering (CNS). We have built at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL) a facility which produces pulsed, collimated, low-energy, quasi-monoenergetic neutron beams using the ${}^7$Li(p,n) reaction, resulting in fluxes of $\sim 1$ neutrons / (s $\cdot$ cm${}^2$) at $\sim$90 cm from the neutron-production target. The first precision results from this facility are reported for ultra-low-energy recoils in NaI(Tl) and CsI(Na) and future plans are outlined, including measurements on candidate materials for a CNS detector that can potentially be fielded at the Spallation Neutron Source of Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a part the Coherent Scatter Initiative (CSI). We discuss the implications of new, precise measurements of quenching factors on neutrino detectors and on current- and next-generation light-WIMP searches, particularly the DAMA experiment.